Looking Back With Despair at a Life of Fighting Genocide

Words are no match for action, and neither are mere laws. Raphael Lemkin, a real-life lawyer who died in 1959, learns this in his imagined afterlife in "Lemkin's House," a compelling, well-acted play by Catherine Filloux at the 78th Street Theater Lab.

Lemkin, who fled Poland in 1939 and eventually ended up in the United States, is associated with one particular word: genocide, which he coined in the 1940's. ("Genos: from the Greek, meaning race, tribe," his character says in the play. "Cide: Latin; to kill. Race-murder.") He campaigned to make it an international crime, with the United States particularly slow to endorse his treaty. But in Ms. Filloux's stark afterlife, he has reason to wonder whether any of his efforts were worthwhile as he is visited by victims and perpetrators of some present-day genocides. Rwanda receives particular attention.

At the center of it all is a lovely performance by John Daggett as Lemkin. The character as drawn by Ms. Filloux may be a bit of a theatrical construct; Lemkin's formidable résumé suggests he could not possibly have been as weak and scatterbrained as portrayed here. But for the play to work, Lemkin has to be likable, and Mr. Daggett certainly makes him that. There is a surprising amount of humor in the play, given its subject matter. Lemkin, for instance, is depicted as being obsessed with his cause even as a child, alphabetizing the names of history's slaughtered races and making up weird games.

"What could we tell our dinner guests when they saw our little boy under the table playing 'genocide' in the dark," laments his mother (Laura Flanagan), "spoons running across the floor chased by evil dictators, the knives?" Ms. Flanagan is joined by Christopher McHale, Christopher Edwards and Connie Winston in giving excellent support to Mr. Daggett in a variety of roles.

Ms. Filloux does not discount Lemkin's efforts, but she also makes grimly clear that good intentions mean nothing in the face of killers who revel in unrestrained savagery and have no reason to fear retaliation. "Lemkin's House" is rarely preachy, but it is a call to action nonetheless.